


Blood and Laughter

by Runespoor



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-11
Updated: 2010-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-11 16:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day Andromeda leaves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood and Laughter

In the end there is not much to be said about Andromeda's conduct; she has led her way too subtly over the years for the drowning traditions to make much ripples, and she has had either the good sense either the brazen arrogance of never quite concealing the breaches she made in too-flimsy rules.

For seven years she has grown away and apart, in ways her family cannot imagine even when she displays it placidly in front of them. It is no scandal for her parents when she is seen with a cigarette between her fingers, when the people of the Slug Club cannot count their ancestors for more than three, or two, or sometimes no generations at all.

She is lucky, she thinks, not to be Aunt Walburga's daughter. Aunt Walburga, with her screams and her curses and her theatrics and the dramatically broken control of her magic – only a few of the many dangers running through the veins of the Blacks – can be inconveniently clairvoyant in her snapshot judgements. Andromeda hopes daily she will avoid the last one for as long as she can draw breath, she has never been inclined to the first and the second, frankly, bores her; but she knows that she is as guilty of the third as any Black whose name is embroidered in iron thread on the fabric of history.

She recalls the silver days of childhood enough, though, to call both her sisters to her before she leaves the family forever, and if Bellatrix didn't have a ring on her finger and Narcissa didn't press her lips before speaking, perhaps she would have been swayed by the memories of the girls they used to be.

But the world around them has changed and changed them, and so the fire in Bella's eyes is not enough to counterbalance her matronly robes, and the broomstick and pink lipstick that have been Narcissa's attributes for so long are fading already, and before a couple of years they, too, will belong to the past.

They are both more still and quieter than they used to be, but if she lets her mind drift she can guess at the phantoms of their past selves, faded, weightless and bright like Patronuses. Narcissa sitting with her dolls under a radio blaring the commentary to a Quidditch match, and Bellatrix failing to write a thank-you letter, kicking her feet under the desk and begging for a distraction. And Andromeda would be lounging on the sofa, flicking cards at their hair, playing out a grotesque dialogue between Narcissa's dolls and making silly suggestions at Bellatrix, until one or the other grew offended and snapped at her to shut up, and Andromeda would throw her head back and laugh.

At the end of the afternoon, when she has confirmed that she will not miss them more than she'd hate herself if she stayed, she tells them her news. I'm leaving, I'm pregnant, I'm bored here, I'm alive and there's nothing you can do to stop me, though not in so few words and not in so plain sentences, because Andromeda pities her sisters and does not wish to hurt them gratuitously.

Narcissa calls her selfish and Bellatrix declares her lost, and in an upsetting proof that the world has gone topsy-turvy Bellatrix is frozen and Narcissa jabs her wand at Andromeda.

Andromeda would rather be lost than be blind and be selfish than be unhappy, and she says so.

"So you're choosing a Mudblood over your family," Narcissa sneers.

"It's wrong, Andromeda, can't you see it's wrong?" Bellatrix mutters.

They're pale and Bella's eyes are wide and Narcissa's are narrowed and their control is growing slippery between their fingers, like a too-thin rope that's been distending for years, only a thread away from breaking.

All Andromeda hears is the word _duty_ that they do not even utter because they don't think they need to or because they don't realize they're arguing.

It's never been a word Andromeda cared very much for.

"You're abandoning us," one of them howls.

It could be Bella or it could be Cissy and Andromeda doesn't know and she starts laughing, and laughing, and laughing. Her sisters are shouting and two hexes go zinging past Andromeda's ears, shattering one vase and burning a slash across the curtain behind her, and Andromeda cannot stop the laughter from bursting out of her, pouring like alcohol that makes her light and dizzy.

They keep screaming and cursing, but already they sound as if they're screaming and cursing at fate, or destiny, or life; it's Andromeda they're addressing, but their insults and their pleas go through her. Even if they don't realize it, they no longer believe they can reach her.

Andromeda doesn't stop laughing even when they cannot take it any more, and Bellatrix Apparates away and Narcissa slams the door on her way out, when they've given up on the wreckage that was Andromeda's bedroom and the mad girl laughing her life off at their despair.

In the end, there is just not much to be said once you've acknowledged the fact that Andromeda likes the feeling of a Muggle-born boy pressing into her more than she loves her sisters.

And if one of them cried, there is no-one left to tell.


End file.
